Round table on short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs)

H.E. Ms Ségolène Royal, Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, participates in a roundtable on short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) at the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS) 2015.

127.2 kb

Round table on "How can reduction of SLCPs contribute to achieving SDGs and a successful outcome in Paris?"

Air quality is a major health issue given that air pollution is responsible for the prevalence of cardio-respiratory and brain diseases as well as different types of cancer. The WHO thus estimates that, annually, 7 million deaths can be ascribed to bad air quality. Apart from harmful effects on health, short-lived climate pollutants have a direct impact on agricultural production, with some being potent greenhouse gases.

Gas: Cooperative solutions and the Solutions Agenda

The aim of the Solutions Agenda is to put a label on the cooperation actions that will enable us to move together towards more sustainable economies.

The Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) is an essential partner in the field of short-lived climate pollutants. Many of you present here are already part of this coalition.

I would like to highlight four initiatives:

The initiative on hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) greenhouse gases. The CCAC helps highlight better the technological options available today but simply lack visibility. This helps lay the groundwork for the treatment of these gases under the Montreal Protocol.

The methane partnership in the oil and gas sector, in which the association of various stakeholders is exemplary.

The initiative on municipal waste, which already involves the cities of all five continents. The waste sector accounts for 3 to 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, i.e. as much as emissions as from civil aviation or shipping. There is also a health issue here: soil contamination, transmission of diseases, and respiratory disorders caused by black carbon particles (soot) resulting from unregulated waste incineration. Lastly, there is also an economic issue, because bad waste management is very costly in the medium term.

The action plan for green freight, which is backed by international cooperation between existing regional and national initiatives to develop new freight programmes, has strong economic and health co-benefits.

HFC: a gas on which we can take rapid action

The efficiency and success of the Montreal Protocol regarding refrigerants, air conditioning and aerosols no longer needs to be proven, and we can use this Protocol to bring HFC gases under its framework. For this, amending the Protocol would suffice.

We would like the complementariness of the Climate Convention and the Montreal Protocol to be used optimally during this procedure, by keeping HFC accounting under the UNFCCC and accelerating the reduced production and consumption of HFCs under the Montreal Protocol.

A contact group will meet in April in Bangkok to consider ways and means to proceed to such amendment.

Making progress on the HFC issue in 2015 would be a strong encouragement in view of the adoption of an agreement applicable to all under the COP21 Climate Convention

Other gases: national actions

Solutions for other short-lived climate pollutants are less immediate, but can nonetheless be implemented right away.

At the national level, five major focus areas guide France’s action:

Action at all levels: action plans for improving air quality have been stepped up, prefects have been mobilised for conducting strong action locally and autonomous local bodies are involved;

Measures curtailing the most polluting vehicular traffic and encouraging the use of new eco-friendly vehicles;

Strong action for the reduction of agriculture GHG emissions, which account for 75% of methane emissions in France;

Facilitating the replacement of low-performance wood-fired heating. The potential for particle emissions reduction is of a significant scale as reductions of 92% have been observed on average;

In general, encouragement of innovation and R&D.

All these are backed by publicity campaigns for improving air quality.